Samy Bengio, a Canadian computer scientist and former artificial intelligence scientist at Google, is likely to be at the helm of a new AI research unit at Apple. This unit will be under John Giannandrea, senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy. The subject has been reported by the people familiar with the matter. Giannandrea is an ex-Google employee and joined Apple in 2018 after spending about eight years with the multinational technology company.
"Apple Hires Ex-Google Artificial Intelligence Scientist Who Resigned After Colleagues' Firings. Apple Inc said on Monday it had hired former distinguished Google scientist Samy Bengio. Apple declined to comment on Samy Bengio's role. Samy Bengio did not respond to a request for comment." [1]
Most Senior Official from Google
On Monday, Apple Inc stated that it had hired the renowned Google scientist Samy Bengio. Bengio was in the news some time ago, when he was reported to be the most senior official from the Google Brain team to leave in the wake of Google's handling of problems in the AI team. His decision followed Google's firings in recent months of fellow scientists Margaret Mitchell after claiming that she had transferred electronic files out of the company and Timnit Gebru when the company abruptly fired her last fall after asking for clarification regarding a retracted paper.
"Bengio wrote in the email, "I learned so much with all of you, in terms of machine learning research, of course, but also on how difficult yet important it is to organize a large team of researchers so as to promote long term ambitious research, exploration, rigor, diversity, and inclusion." [2]
Concerns About Google's Workplace Policies
Mitchell and Gebru were co-leaders of a team researching ethics issues in AI. They had both made known their concerns about Google's workplace policies and were well-known advocates for diversity in technology. They had been seeking changes in Google's approach to reviewing research. Bengio had expressed support for the pair in his resignation email, although he did not name them.
After 14 years with Google
In December last year, Bengio had written on Facebook that he was "stunned" that Gebru, who was part of his team, was removed by the company without him being consulted. Bengio left Google last week after 14 years with them. He declined to comment on what his role in Apple might be but said last month that he was pursuing "other exciting opportunities."
Bengio's work has been directly credited for advancing "deep-learning" algorithms critical to the functioning of different modern AI systems for analyzing images, speech, and other data. One of the oldest Google Brain members, Andrew Ng, who later started the software company Landing AI, has worked with Bengio. He said that Bengio "has been instrumental to moving forward AI technology and ethics."
Replaced By Jeff Dean
Bengio has been replaced by another founding member, Jeff Dean. He now oversees the thousands of researchers hired by Google Brain. People have described Bengio's departure as "a huge loss for Google."
RESOURCES
Published by: Book Club